Mental Correspondences between Genetic Epistemology and the Transformational‑Generative Theory

Abstract

The transformational-generative approach emerged as a corrective to earlier linguistic studies that focused on the superficial aspects of language. Bloomfield, for example, concentrated—within linguistic research—on the behaviorist dimension based on stimulus and response. This perspective confines human linguistic activity to external surrounding factors, leading to the conclusion that phonetic articulation is merely a reaction to external stimuli. Such a view reduces human linguistic ability to a mechanical process operating according to immediate reactions, producing certain utterances in particular contexts.

Chomsky rejects this mechanistic view. Humans are not mere machines controlled by the circumstances of linguistic production, and accepting such an approach strips humans of their creative ability in generating language. This is intellectually unacceptable, for language constitutes one of the richest cognitive capacities of the mind, manifested first in linguistic competence and second in the central mechanisms responsible for speech production—all based on hypothesized models derived from logical and mathematical principles.